For what it's worth, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. If you want to read the arguments, enter the patent number 8276057 at this website:

http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair

Look under the heading "file wrapper" for all the communication. In particular, read:

	 CTNF	Non-Final Rejection
	 REM	Applicant Arguments/Remarks Made in an Amendment
	 NPL	Non Patent Literature
         NOA	Notice of Allowance and Fees Due (PTOL-85)

I'm not bored enough to read the whole thing, but the claims seem to have been some constrained on very technical points.

Please note: this patent is completely bogus, and I am not defending it. I am pointing this out because I think it is critically important for people to understand how the process works. Otherwise all this hand-wringing is for naught (and those who don't learn from history, etc...)

A suggestion for an enterprising web designer who happens to also be a bored 2L: make a website to semi-automate collation of prior art challenges. Court is not the only way to challege a patent. Patents can be challenged by 3rd parties through an "ex-parte re-examination request". One of the big limitations to this is the cost of the legal process and prior-art search/summation. I'm dreaming of a website that would allow crowd-sourcing to get 95% of the way to a ready-to-file submission, which could then be vetted and finalized by pro-bono lawyers, students in legal clinic, etc.

No.

GoDaddy titles a patent "Announcing a Domain Name Registration on a Social Website"

Regardless of your position on US copyright law, you simply must understand this important and not-so-subtle distinction before you make arguments about the validity of a patent. There are 18 claims in this patent. Read and complain about specific claims.

To choose a random example, patent US496217 by Stihl (1990) is titled "Handle for a chain saw", yet Stihl did not patent handles on chain saws.

Wow! What an innovation. I would never have thought of doing this. Its a shame I won't be able to do this myself now.

Hang on? Isn't everyone already doing this for just about every other online venture? Someone registered via Facebook -> Post to wall. Hmmm. Maybe I should copy and paste their patent application and switch out "domain name registration" for any other service name.

I think it is silly for 2 reason's. Firstly this is not an innovation in any shape or form. People have been doing this for years with everything. It shouldn't have been approved. Secondly, GoDaddy have spent time and money gaining a patent which they can't enforce. Seems silly. I feel they just wanted to add "using patented technology" in their advertising.

Patent trolls have had open season on engineers because the lawmakers and moneymen don't listen to us.

Going after marketers, however, will be their undoing.

The patent system is like a bug in a software that all your clients rely upon and will never let you fix. I expect peace in the middle east to happen before the patent system gets scrapped.

Even scarier is their definition of social network. From the patent document:

"Social networking websites may comprise internet-based social networking services that focus on building and verifying online social networks for communities of people who may share interests and activities, wish to communicate with each other efficiently, and may be interested in exploring the interests and activities of others, and which necessitates the use of software applications".

In addition to Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn and Facebook they also list YouTube and Flickr as specific examples. This thing is pretty far reaching.

This is silly. They should have patented "announcing something on the internet"

In gmail, I filter every email from GoDaddy and apply label "change registrar", just so I'll remember when my domains expire. I'm not really liking most things I see from GoDaddy; perhaps with the exception of pricing.

They should patent "Getting Away With Outrageous Misogyny In A Business That Would Seem Inhospitable For It"; that's their true and only talent.

I'd love it if the clerk(s) in question could explain how it isn't "obvious to a person 'skilled in the relevant art' applying reasonable diligence and effort."

One thing these characters could patent is a system and method of auto renewing and parking a domain they host if their site is used to check on it as it approaches expiry. I give GoDaddy a wide berth.

Damn I need to move that last domain off of Go Daddy. Ill do that today.

I could expect this out of Go Daddy, but should the people approving this patent also be blamed?

Maybe someone here can patent the act of making trivial, over-reaching patents and put a stop to all this?

I have JUST patented announcing the patent of announcing a domain name registration on a social website...

You all owe me £1m each ... (I also patented talking about it).

Software patents with troll owners have long been the Sword of Damocles for the bootstrapped startup. This one is probably of no consequence but overall they represent a barrier to entry that has no basis in natural law. I really doubt we'll ever see meaningful reform because those who could effect a change don't have a clue about the technology their laws affect.

The patent's claims are slightly more specific than the title would suggest, but are still absurdly broad. The patent appears to cover announcing, after a delay, a domain name registration on a social website using oauth.

So, say I buy a domain from Register.com and then manually post it on my Facebook that I bought this, that isn't Register.com's fault right?

This seems pointless because you could still just encourage people to do it manually, in another part of the purchase flow, or maybe even a week or two after? It seems to me that the patent just blocks you from having an official Facebook share button or Tweet (or something like that) button on the checkout summary page.

On this basis:

A photo-sharing service can patent "announcing a picture upload on a social website". A location service can patent "announcing a check-in on a social website" A restaurant review service can patent "announcing a restaurant rating on a social website"

It might actually help more such "ridiculous" patents being granted. Eventually, the non-tech crowd will be affected and the whole system will be brought into question.

But that's just a small part of what the sites are doing these days, such as providing free renewal for the second year in case a user allows connecting its Facebook Account, and granting permission to the site to publish any promotion post on the wall of the user(which can be anything more than saying that user has registered an 'example.com' domain name on register.com).

They should have gone for a wider range of things.

This is just ridiculous. Where does it stop?

And after reading articles like these - http://www.law.com/corporatecounsel/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202... - makes one feel the legal system is aware how outdated and broken it is.

How is this patentable? Isn't this just API stuff?

I don't think this "service" will even be successful. Domainers certainly don't want to share their business matters with their Facebook friends. And business owners may spend several months developing a site before publishing it. No timer can predict when the site is done.

In addition to requiring a delay, the patent claims as allowed require that you GIVE GODADDY your credentials to the social networking site and that their server will use the credentials to log you in. Contrary to what some of you are saying, this is not oath.

Hm. Another fairly bogus patent, but who exactly is going to use it anyway? Even if you had the site already prepared and developed... CNAME and other DNS jazz takes a day to propagate anyway. You'd end up announcing something that wasn't there.

This is genius, announcing registrations on Facebook. I have never seen such a thing.

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How can it be for real? Not surprising tho since the structure of the legal system and the law as it currently is just cannot keep up with technological progress.

I will patent announcing patents on social websites.

Good to see Godaddy focusing on their core business and keeping secure, reachable and reliable instead of useless fringe projects.

I'm surprised this was not patented already.

You have got to be kidding!

RIP Patent System...

They are going to be patenting sandwiches next!

if some politician would get rid of "business process patents", we would be 90% of the way there.

"I also acknowledge that a $20 fee may apply." Are you shitting me?